Because reality is beautiful.

Preamble to my Utopia Continued

The writing of law must be based around six ideas: (1.) Man is valuable. (2.) Man’s freedom is valuable. (3.) Most (though not all) men will exploit others if given the chance (4.) Governments are composed men very much like the ones they govern. (5.) Governments and law should be put in place by the same men whom it governs (6.) The purpose of government and law is to prevent and punish exploitation (ie, a person or group removing the freedom of another for some sort of personal gain.)

With a framework to judge man, law and government in hand, it it time to list the limitations of man, law, and government. Law and government are for most men, not saints and not devils. Saints need no government, they will always do the right thing. Devils will not be dissuaded from wrong no matter how harsh the penalties. It is not for these ungovernable men that law is written or executed. It for the common man. Because of this, many compromises must be made in the writing of law. The saint must be burdened with laws he does not need, and the devil with laws he will never follow, so that the common man may be governed. However, the saint and the common man both need not burdened with laws written solely punish the devil. Such laws burden the good and actively benefit the evil, for devils will have their vices, and if vices are banned the devil will simply be better paid.

No government can make man not prone to exploitation Further, no government in history has ever figured out how to produce saints but many have figured out how to produce devils. The common man is not easily pushed toward sainthood and his toehold on morality is precarious, but he will slide toward evil with great ease. This must be considered not only in the laws which regulate the actions of the common man, but those which regulate the actions of the government itself as well. After all, a government is nothing more than body of common men.

The last limitation of government is funding. Since man is prone to exploitation, and the government prevents it, few men will pay voluntarily pay the government to govern them. The government must collect its funding by force, called taxes. Since man’s freedom is valuable and taxes are coercively collected, the government must be as small and efficient as possible to make this loss of freedom as negligible as possible.

The last limitation of man is how he acts in groups. In general a group may have all the freedoms of a person. However, groups have an incredible power over man, and over his institutions. The larger and more cohesive a group is the more power it can have. Since large cohesive groups have this power the larger and more cohesive a group is, the greater the groups freedoms must be restricted to prevent the exploitation of other groups and individuals. A nation and a state both represent groups of voters. Since there is rarely cohesion between voters, as a group they need no restrictions. A national government and a state government both also represent groups. Both are large and highly cohesive, so they need strong restrictions of freedom. The national government is larger and needs more restrictions than the state government. In fact, the national government must be the most powerful group in the nation to do its duty. Thus, its freedoms are more restricted than any other group in the nation.

Corporations and religions represent very challenging groups for government. Both are excellent for the the people. One encourages wealth and hard work, the other moral behavior at work and at home. However, despite these benefits, both can contain very large, highly cohesive, and very effective groups. These to types of group have enormous potential to exploit others. As such their freedoms must be restricted proportionally to any other group of the same power and wealth.